The Trouble with Growing Up
by Remembrance
Summary: This is a little piece I wrote to keep my novel-length fic from becoming monotonus. What do you guys think? Will Hermione follow Ron's advice? This is cute and will end differently than anyone thinks. Read and Review!!
1. A Tremulous Beginning

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The Dream Team, even in their fourth year. The group did everything together, and when I say everything, I mean everything. They studied, fought, ate, laughed, snuck around, got in and out of trouble. Oh, yeah, and they saved the world a couple of times in there, too.  
  
You all know the beginning of the friendship, and the first three years of their schooling. I won't go into detail about that, for fear of boring you. And the fourth year is another subject that was been speculated about countless times. I have for you here a snippet of this action-packed chapter in the lives of our heroes. Some of you will consider this humor, others romance, still others, just a bit of nonsense. But I consider it the truth.  
  
It all started on the first day, like most stories do. Harry, Ron and Hermione were hurrying out the Great Hall, where an argument over the importance of Quidditch (between Hermione and Ron, of course) had kept them late. Just as they swung around the corner to Transfiguration, a diversion popped up in the form of Neville Longbottom.  
  
"H-hello, Hermione." Neville danced from foot to foot, nervously wringing his hands. Harry and Ron stared curiously at their friend. Hermione was digging through her bag, trying to find the extra credit report she had already completed.  
  
"What? Oh, hello Neville. Are you coming to Transfiguration?" Neville blushed bright red and nodded vigorously. Hermione gave him a ghost of an odd look and brushed past him to the entrance, ducking inside. Neville sighed deeply, then hurried in after her, never giving a moments notice to the two other wizards who were standing in the hallway.  
  
"I know he's a bit slow, but do you reckon he's gone totally off his rocker?" whispered Ron. Harry shrugged and the two rushed in the classroom just in time to hear the Professor McGonagall welcoming them. They plopped down into the seats Hermione had saved for them, picking up on the fact the Neville was seated on the other side of them, staring at Hermione intensely.  
  
"Okay class. Today we are going to be picking up right where we left off last year. I hope you all have been reviewing your text over the summer." There was a low undercurrent of groans. "Now, who can tell me the last chapter we covered?" Hermione's hand shot in the air like a rocket, causing a small whoosh of air past Ron's face.  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
"We studied forest survival, with classes on how to use items like sticks and rocks and turn them into more convenient items, such as food stuffs and perhaps warm clothing." Professor McGonagall dolled out a smile and nodded.  
  
"Very good, Hermione. I can tell you've been studying over the break. Take five points to Gryffindor." Hermione grinned and Ron playfully nudged her in the ribs.  
  
"Know-it-all," he teased in a joking singsong. Hermione tried to pretend like she was offended, but allowed a small smile.  
  
"HOW DARE YOU! YOU WILL NEVER APPRECIATE THE WONDERS OF HER KNOWLEDGE!" Ron looked up, startled, as Neville jumped from his seat and wagged his finger at him.   
  
"What is the meaning of this outburst?" asked Professor McGonagall sharply.  
  
"Professor, Ron was calling Hermione a know-it-all! He was acting cruelly, just because she's so much better than him!" Neville was quite red in the face as he tattled in his loudest voice. Harry, Ron and Hermione were all looking very puzzled.  
  
"Neville, I'm quite sure that everything is in order. Due to the friendship between Hermione and Ron, I'm almost positive that it was nothing more than a bit of joshing around. Hermione seems none to upset. You are fine, Hermione?"  
  
"Well, of course. I knew he was only kidding."  
  
"Right then. Please take your seat, Neville. If you'll turn to page four hundred and five of your texts..." Harry turned to Hermione, who was studiously flipping the pages of a thick book.  
  
"That was weird," he said in a tone that was asking a thousand other questions. Hermione simply wrinkled her brow and nodded.  
  
"Yes, I suppose so. Now hush, I'm trying to listen."  
  
Harry sat back, confused as ever. You couldn't say it wasn't an interesting start to a new year.  
________________________________________________________________________  
  
The next few weeks passed quite curiously. Hermione dived wholeheartedly into schoolwork; Ron dived, with the same enthusiasm, into complaining about schoolwork and Harry dived into playing peacemaker with a grim smile and a mind set on the Quidditch practices not far away. Throughout all the normalcy, one person was acting quite out of character. Neville was still a bit bumbling, and still deathly afraid of Snape, but now seemed to be working on his appearance, and using a bigger vocabulary. He could even be spotted reading, some nights, every now and then glancing up eagerly to see if anyone was taking notice. It was very interesting.  
  
"Um, Hermione, have you noticed anything weird about Neville lately?" Ron asked one night after watching Neville stare at their table for a full hour. Hermione looked up from her Charms essay distractedly.  
  
"Oh, now that you mention it, yeah. The other night at dinner he pulled my chair out from under me when I was sitting down. I wonder why he did that? He never seemed to be the type to do something mean for no purpose." Harry and Ron stifled laughs.  
  
"Hermione, he was probably trying to pull the chair out FOR you, but with his timing..." Harry tried not to join in Ron's hearty laughter, but Hermione's confused face was making it hard.  
  
"Why in the world would he do that?" she asked, looking at Harry like _he_ was the crazy one.  
  
"Hermione, your head has been stuck in the books for so long that you missed out on learning about basic lifetime things. Such as picking up on the obvious." Ron started laughing to hard to speak. Hermione was starting to get increasingly annoyed.  
  
"Would someone tell me what exactly is so funny?" she said crossly.  
  
"I don't know Ron, it's kind of fun to know something she doesn't for once." Ron nodded at Harry with tears of mirth in his eyes.  
  
"**HARRY!**" Hermione's eyes flashed and Ron and Harry knew she was near her breaking point.  
  
"Fine, fine, fine. Hermione, Neville Longbottom has a crush the size of England- on you." Hermione gasped.  
  
"There is no way that's possible."  
  
"And why not?"  
  
"Because! Don't you think I would have known? It's hard to miss something like th- oh no! I bet it's because of you guys!!"  
  
"Uh uh, no way are you pinning the blame on us this time, Hermione," Ron said hotly.  
  
"It's all your fault," she moaned, "you two are my only friends! And your both boys!!"  
  
"Yup, last time I checked, anyway," agreed Harry.  
  
"Girls that don't grow up with a strong female influence often end up with an emotional barrier that doesn't allow them to develop crushes or feel things like adolescent 'love'! I must have stunted emotional growth! Oh, this is terrible! What if I never catch up?" Hermione grabbed a handful of her hair, sounding once more like she had swallowed the textbook. She looked desperately at Harry and Ron, who were watching her break down with no small amusement.  
  
"What do I do?"  
  
"Don't look at me! You know that 'girls mature faster than boys' excuse you're always throwing at me? It's working in MY favor this time!" cried Ron with a triumphant grin. Hermione whirled around to Harry.  
  
"Sorry Herm. I have absolutely nothing to say. The only girl I've ever talked to for more than three sentences is you!"  
  
Hermione shoved her books in her bag and huffed up to the girls dorms. Neville watched her leave with a sad face, then went up to his own dorm, his reason for being there long gone. Harry and Ron looked at each other with faces of mystification and amusement.  
  
"It's gonna be an interesting year, Harry."  
**_______________________________________________________________  
  
**Three days passed, and the situation only got worse. Hermione, knowing now what justified Neville's behavior, was doing her best to avoid him. Instead of gently off-putting him, as she hoped it would, this only made him work harder to win her heart. Soon she was getting "anonymous" boxes of candy, bouquets of flowers and desperate attempts at love poetry.  
  
"'When I see your eyes so brown/There's nothing better in any town/Your hair is big and beautiful/Just like a flower you would never want to kill/I think I love you, do you love me?/After all, I am better than a flea' Geez, poor guy is really trying! What in the world am I going to do guys? These just keep getting longer and longer..." Hermione gestured to the thick piles of parchment that had been left at the door. Ron and Harry didn't answer, they were to busy stuffing their faces with Chocolate Frogs and Cauldron Cakes- Neville had surely bought out Hogsmeade. Hermione ruffled through the stacks and let out an audible gasp.  
  
"What?"  
  
"This one says he wants me to meet him in the Trophy Room at eight o'clock tonight!! What do I do, what do I do? I can't blatantly ignore him!!"  
  
"Then you have to go," said Ron firmly.  
  
"How is that going to solve anything?" she asked sarcastically.  
  
"Hey, you're the one with all the answers. I'm just pretending to help."  
  
"Thanks a lot, Ron!"  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
"Why are you acting like this?!"  
  
"Hermione, don't get all huffy. I'm sorry if I don't know what to do for you!!"  
  
"You could at least show a little sympathy or something! You know, play friend for a little while?"  
  
"Shut up, Hermione."  
  
"RON! Oh my God, you are going to wish you had been a little more considerate."  
  
"I seriously doubt that."  
  
"Oh you'll see." Hermione stormed out of the common room, leaving both boys staring at her angry back.  
  
"What was that all about, Ron?" Harry was looking a little bit dazed at the rapid succession of the fight.  
  
"I haven't the slightest."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. An Un-ended End

That night, directly after dinner, Harry and Ron saw Hermione rushing somewhat nervously towards the Trophy Room.  
  
"See? She's taking my advice after all," said Ron triumphantly.   
  
"Looks that way- so will you make up with her now? I really can't take much more of these tense dinners." Harry fixed Ron with a determined glare. Ron sighed.  
  
"I guess so. After all, we are her only friends," he said with a small snicker.  
  
"I wouldn't laugh so quickly, Ron. She's our only friend, too."  
________________________________________________________________________  
  
The boys were just finishing with their homework when Neville came barreling through the door and up to his dorm with a very red face. Hermione came in a few seconds later, looking upset, but a little bit happy at the same time.  
  
"How'd it go?" asked Harry. Hermione shrugged.  
  
"I got rid of one problem," she said dismissively, reaching into her bag and pulling out her Ancient Runes book. Ron took it from her and lifted her chin.  
  
"Look, Hermione, I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't really mean it. Friends again?" Hermione smiled, relieved, and Ron gave her back her book so she could furiously work on her translations.  
  
"So, what'd you end up telling Neville?" asked Ron conversationally.  
  
"I told him I couldn't go out with him because we were already going out," mumbled Hermione very fast, not looking up from her parchment. Ron's quill snapped in two.  
  
"WHAT!"  
  
"I had to!" Hermione cried.  
  
"You HAD to? WHY did you HAVE to?" Ron's face was very nearly matching his hair.  
  
"Ron, please, think of it from my point of view! If I told him I was going out with Harry, then I'd have fourteen girls out to kill me. They already all have crushes on him! You were a MUCH safer choice!" Ron looked at her incredulously.  
  
"Are you TRYING to get me more angry with you? What I don't understand is why did you have to go out with either of us!"  
  
"Neville is my friend, I couldn't just say to him, 'Sorry, I don't like you' I had to have a REASON!"  
  
"Hermione, for a know-it-all, sometimes you can be really dumb."  
  
"Ron, please? PLEASE? For once, do me this teeny, tiny favor?" Hermione clasped her hands and looked at him with puppy dog eyes.  
  
"This is NOT a teeny favor. Granger, you owe me big time!" Ron did not look at all happy with the prospect of playing boyfriend, but Hermione wasn't looking as if she were expecting much a performance. She had already jumped back into her homework, and the rest of the night passed pretty uneventfully.  
  
"Night, Harry, Night _Hon_." Hermione slipped up to bed quietly, leaving Ron with his nose wrinkled in distaste. Harry had been strangely quiet all night.  
  
"Harry, wake up. Why're you so quiet?"  
  
"Do you think fourteen girls REALLY have crushes on me?"   
________________________________________________________________________  
  
The next week passed oddly. Hermione and Ron went hand in hand to every class and every meal, being sure to call each other things like 'Hon' and 'Cupcake' and 'Sweetie' loud enough for Neville to hear. Poor Neville seemed very upset, and spent hours looking daggers at Ron, who nervously ignored him. All the Gryffindor girls "had just KNOWN that Hermione would get together with ONE of those boys sometime soon", and were "EVER so glad that she had ended up with Ron, and not Harry". The first few days were fodder for the ever running rumor mill, but by the next Friday, things weren't looking quite so bad. That is, until the scene in the common room.  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione were working on their Astrology charts late in the common room that night; Hermione was quite busy chiding Harry for letting Ron copy his.  
  
"That boy has trouble enough learning without you giving him a free ride!" she said in an overprotective-mother tone.  
  
"I have a name, you know," interjected Ron.  
  
"Hush,_ Sweetie_," said Hermione, brushing him off and turning back to Harry. Before she could start again, someone in front of them cleared their throat. It was (you guessed it) Neville.  
  
"Er- hello, Neville," said Hermione, instinctively scooting closer to Ron. It was the first time she had spoken to him since she told him "the truth".  
  
"Ron, I've been giving a lot of thought to this. If you and Hermione are really together, then you have to prove it to me. If you prove it sufficiently, then I will-" Neville sighed and rubbed his eyes, "I will let you have her, and stop trying to win her heart. But if not, then she is fair game and I will not consider her taken." Hermione was sitting, quite indignant of ever being considered "fair game", but Ron was to busy wondering what he'd have to do to prove himself. He didn't have long to wait.  
  
"Ron, if you two are REALLY together, then you have to kiss her, right here, in front of everybody!" The common room went silent. Ron gulped, and his expression was quite unreadable. Hermione closed her eyes very tight and exhaled loudly. She opened her eyes and Ron was glaring at her, but he put his hand on the back of her hand, drew her in, and kissed her, right on the lips, open mouthed.  
  
Time stopped. Everyone was staring, in shock, at the first two people to kiss in their year. Harry's jaw dropped and Neville let out a dry sob, running up to the dorms. Only then did the two teenagers draw back from each other. They stared into each other's eyes, saying nothing, moving never. Hermione was the first to speak.  
  
"You kissed me," she said.  
  
"Um, yeah," answered Ron.  
  
"That was my first kiss," she said.  
  
"Um, yeah," agreed Ron.  
  
"My first kiss was wasted on you!" she cried.  
  
"Um, ye- what?! Wasted? **_I_** was the one with the wasted kiss! I was only doing this for you!"  
  
"I CAN'T believe with just did that," said Hermione, wiping her sleeve across her mouth. Ron wrinkled his nose and both turned to Harry, who was laughing so hard no noise was coming out.  
  
"WHAT is so funny?" they said in unison.  
  
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all. It's not everyday that you get to watch your two best friends make out," he said flippantly, being attacked by nearby couch cushions. "UNCLE! UNCLE! I give up...I take it back!"  
  
"That is that last time we do that," said Ron firmly, sitting back down to his homework.  
  
"Agreed," answered Hermione, settling down with her Runes. Just then, Lavender Brown raced over and spoke to Hermione in an undertone.  
  
"Uh, Hermione, did you and Ron just, er, break up?" she asked worriedly. Hermione put on her best sad face and nodded slowly. Lavender gasped.  
  
"Oh! This is terrible! Professor Trenlawry said I would have something good for a short time, then it would be taken from me. I should have KNOWN!" She fled upstairs with her left hand dramatically across her forehead, leaving a mystified Dream Team behind.   
  
So it wasn't your run-of-the-mill type of snippet. Forgive me. Actually don't, cause I'm not offering any apologies. Think about it. We're at Hogwarts. Have you ever read anything run-of-the-mill about that school? I didn't yesterday, haven't today, I doubt I ever will. And Amen to that. 


End file.
